What Z.ai GLM 5.3 costs for real workloads
| Workload | Estimated cost |
|---|---|
| Support chatbot: 100K messages | $244.00 |
| RAG search: 10K queries with 6K-token context | $106.00 |
| Batch summarization: 1,000 long documents | $32.40 |
| Coding agent: 100 tasks, 50K context x 20 turns | $29.10 |
Chatbot: 800 input + 300 output tokens per message. RAG: 6,000 + 500 per query. Summarization: 20,000 + 1,000 per document. Coding agent: 20 turns per task over a 50K-token context, with 95% of input served from cache where the model supports it.
Z.ai GLM 5.3 vs similarly priced models
| Model | Provider | Input / 1M | Output / 1M | Cached / 1M | Blended |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 2.0 Live | $0.75 | $4.50 | — | $1.69 | |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 | Together AI | $1.32 | $3.96 | $0.13 | $1.98 |
| gpt-6.1-terra | OpenAI | $1.00 | $5.00 | $0.050 | $2.00 |
| Gemini 3 Pro Lite | $1.00 | $5.00 | $0.050 | $2.00 | |
| Gemini 3 Pro Flash | $1.00 | $5.00 | $0.050 | $2.00 | |
| Gemini 3 Pro Thinking | $1.00 | $5.00 | $0.050 | $2.00 | |
| GLM-5.3 | Together AI | $1.40 | $4.40 | $0.26 | $2.15 |
| GLM-5.2 | Together AI | $1.40 | $4.40 | $0.26 | $2.15 |
| Z.ai GLM 5.3 | Mistral AI | $1.40 | $4.40 | $0.14 | $2.15 |
Other Mistral AI models
Z.ai GLM 5.3 pricing FAQ
How much does the Z.ai GLM 5.3 API cost?
Z.ai GLM 5.3 costs $1.40 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens on Mistral AI, with cached input at $0.14 per million. Prices as of November 8, 2026.
How much does Z.ai GLM 5.3 cost for 1,000 requests?
At 1,000 input and 500 output tokens per request, 1,000 requests cost about $3.60.
Does Z.ai GLM 5.3 have a prompt caching discount?
Yes. Cached input is $0.14 per million tokens, 10x cheaper than fresh input. Workloads that resend the same context, like agents and chat with long system prompts, pay mostly the cached rate.
Is Z.ai GLM 5.3 expensive compared to other LLM APIs?
It ranks #52 cheapest of 76 models we track on a blended price (3 input tokens per output token) of $2.15 per million tokens.
Picking a model for production?
Describe your workload and the Planner estimates monthly token spend across every model we track.